The End of the Age of Newt Has Nearly Come

Scenes from an old, tired man's party. (Except the middle one, which is just kind of amazing.)

MANCHESTER, N.H. — N. Leroy Gingrich, historian of his own lobbying shop, emperor of his own private universe, and leader (perhaps) of the civilizing forces, was kicking it old-school last night. The rest of these cheapskates spoke to their supporters in college gymnasiums and downtown restaurants so crowded it was worth your life to try and get a drink. (Willard Romney had three venues in widely dispersed places on the campus of Southern New Hampshire University, and some of his supporters may still be wandering there on Wednesday afternoon, trying to find one of the rallies.) Gingrich, however, threw a party in a ballroom in the headquarters hotel downtown, compete with accessible (cash) bars and a faux-soul band belting out covers of Motown and Stax tunes. He took the stage to the strains of "You're The Best In Town," the crappy '80's pop tune that they play over the tournament action montage at the end of The Karate Kid. It was morning in America again, dammit, and Newt was young.

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Except, of course, that it wasn't, and he wasn't, and the whole place felt like a living museum, something the Disney folks might build for the tourists who come to their new family fun park, Reaganworld.

"If I have idols," Newt told the crowd, "it's Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher." On, lads! On to the Falklands! Or, perhaps, to the Oscars. Go get 'em, Meryl!

There was great hope for him, coming out of Iowa. He was legitimately pissed at the money-bombing he'd suffered at the hands of Willard Romney's anonymous corporate button-men. People waited for him to come out with his old fire, the way people waited for Ali to work the magic against Earnie Shavers, or Larry Holmes, or the other men who battered him when he was two steps over the hill. And, instead, the party turned loudly against him. He made matters worse by being the leader of the strange effort to attack Romney from the left on the issue of Romney's career as a vulture capitalist. By primary night, he had been excoriated on the air by Rush Limbaugh, and former New Hampshire governor John Sununu, Sr. was calling his arguments "socialism" on television.

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(Back in the day, Gingrich and Limbaugh were joined at the hips, and they both actually had hips back in the day. When Gingrich led the Republican takeover of the House in 1994, he invited Limbaugh and every talk-radio mouth in the country to broadcast live from the Capitol. And John Sununu? There was a time when Gingrich would have eaten him on toast.)

You can hardly blame Gingrich for seizing the opportunity. Three years after the financial sector nearly ate the entire world, devastating the national economy and ruining millions of lives, the Republican party is preparing to nominate for president a pure product of that very same world. And, mysteriously, the Democrats, who should be beating this point like a Chinese gong, thus far have done sweet nothing with it, choosing instead to parse the numbers on how many jobs Bain actually should be crediting with "creating." Newt has probably grabbed this gigantic political weapon just out of an outraged sense of political style.

On Tuesday night, though, he looked tired and old. "Having been an historian a long time," he said. "We have an opportunity, I think, to unify the country around a message of jobs, economic growth, and very dramatic change.... We can reach out to everyone of any background who would rather have paychecks rather than food stamps..... This campaign is going to go on to South Carolina." There was no snap in his words, just as their was no snap in the jabs that the aging Ali threw at Holmes.

He is going to try, god knows. The people who think he should pull back because of the damage he may do to The Party, or to his own legacy, are missing the point of the man's whole career. As a young congressman, he ran roughshod over those Republican elders in the House who dearly wished he'd simply shut...the...hell...up. His talent as a political arsonist is his political legacy; as he sees it, he is leading (perhaps) the civilizing forces, and crusaders do not sue for peace while the city walls are standing.

(And, before we go further, can we make a rule that any political reporter who uses the phrase "Ronald Reagan's 11th Commandment — You Shall Not Speak Ill of Another Republican" should be flogged through the streets for sheer journalistic malpractice? In 1964, with a single speech in support of Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan helped begin the political demolition of Rockefeller Republicanism, and of Nelson Rockefeller himself, for all that. In 1976, he ran against a sitting president of his own party, and came within an ace of pulling it off. Four years later, he eviscerated George H.W. Bush. Just stop saying it, okay? Even Reagan didn't believe it.)

He's already on the air in South Carolina with a cutthroat abortion ad aimed at Willard. But his time is clearly gone, and just when he has a real political grudge to avenge. He's an old movie on cable. He's a story conservatives tell their grandchildren.